


you're waiting for a train

by surelytothesea (fourhorsemen)



Series: The 'Times' Verse [2]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Dreams vs. Reality, Dreamsharing, Limbo, M/M, Totems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-05
Updated: 2015-09-05
Packaged: 2018-04-19 04:43:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4733195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourhorsemen/pseuds/surelytothesea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur has another totem. Ariadne finds out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you're waiting for a train

1.

The first time Ariadne notices should have given it away.  She is an architect, naturally keen on details, but it doesn’t mean she’s very perceptive or observant when it comes to people. So when she sees Arthur smile to himself, put his hand just below his collarbone almost absently, thumb brushing against the fabric of his shirt, Ariadne frowns in confusion then dismisses it as nothing.

Stranger still, to her then, was that Arthur had smiled at something _Eames_ said. 

(In hindsight, _that_ was the point at which she would have realized, had she known to look. Had she known to look back at Eames to see his eyes flick to Arthur’s hand, his smirk melting into a smile instead, so subtle she’d hardly have noticed if she had even been looking in the right place at the right time.)

 

2.

The second time is not so obvious.  

Arthur is against a wall, a hand at his throat in a chokehold; a stray projection he couldn’t keep in check. Ariadne is frantic and panicked; she doesn’t know what to do – shoot Arthur or the projection? Shoot Arthur and the dream crumbles, their mission incomplete; Cobb is nowhere near the point of extraction, after three years he’s rusty.

 Shoot the projection and she risks more, a mob showing up – and here in striking clarity she remembers the days leading up to the Fischer job, when she’d gone too far in Cobb’s dream and a mob of projections had surrounded her, Mal at the head, striding towards her stabbing her in the gut and the flash of _pain, so much, so much PAIN_.

She had just decided to shoot Arthur _, fuck the job_ , she knew how it felt only too well – the feeling before death, dream or not and she wasn’t Cobb, she couldn’t do this. She doesn’t belong on the field yet it dreamshare keeps drawing her back. _Pure creation_ , she remembers, Arthur’s words.

Arthur. Who has slipped free, competent as ever even with the skin around his neck already bruising blue-black, face pale and drawn, has the projection in a headlock, snaps its neck, swiftly and without hesitation.

It’s only natural for his hands to go straight to his own neck next, clutching his throat, his collarbones, feeling _alive_. If his hand drifts down below and clutches, Ariadne thinks nothing of it.

 

3.

The third time she doesn’t notice but she does find out. It’s not in the best situation.

Arthur had warned him, it was too dangerous, going into the mind of a military official –  both a militarized subconscious and a military background – it was a stupid idea but Cobb wouldn’t take no for an answer. He never did. Ariadne wonders why she listened to him. Wonders why she hadn’t refused.

They are stuck in Limbo. Ariadne doesn’t know for how long.

Arthur loses his totem.

Cobb loses himself.

Ariadne finds herself.

Ariadne remembers dying, Arthur dying, Cobb dying, then the next thing she remembers is Arthur’s face, desperate, searching for his die – a loaded die that sunk, now at the bottom of the ocean, lost in a dream, lost in reality. Then she remembers building. Making. _Creating_. That’s all she remembers.

Ariadne wondered what it said about her that she was most at home there, in the unconstructed space. _Pure creation,_ she thinks, remembers thinking.

They get out, sheer force of will and Eame’s impeccable timing. 

Then, she is _awake_. She opens her eyes to Cobb, blinking, looking lost, as if he never left Limbo at all. She opens her eyes to Eames, pulling Arthur to his feet, who looks at him like he’s the Messiah, he’s the Sun, clutching at him disbelievingly. That is her first clue.

The next is not much a clue as a hammer to the head.

She sees Arthur clutch at his own chest, desperately – she has never seen him so _desperate_ , so lost... Arthur and Limbo do not mix – and then he fumbles at the buttons to his shirt, his collar, ignoring Eame’s hushed reassurances.

Arthur’s grip is weak, fumbling but he manages, gets the chain off his neck and places the ring looped in it on his palm with shaking fingers, clutching it. He stares at his palm for a while, as if no one else is there, it is the only thing in the room – the fixed point, the singularity the universe was born from.

He looks up then, after seemingly forever, Ariadne remembers not being able to tell the time (how much time had passed, how much time it should have taken). He looks right at Eames, eyes listless and glistening. Eames smiles at him wanly, brushes his lips over the back of Arthur’s shaking hands, gently takes the chain from him. He takes the ring out, maintains eye contact with Arthur, who looks as if any moment he could snap, snatch the chain back and hold it protectively to his chest.

He cups Arthur’s hand in his, slips the ring on his finger, slowly, gently and Arthur breaks. He chokes on something, words, Ariadne thinks, brings his other hand up to twist the ring on his finger, again and again and again.

Eames is still holding his hand, a thumb rubbing back on forth, a soothing contrast to how Arthur twists frantically, feels the weight of the ring and how it chafes against his skin. Ariadne remembers then, feeling like an outsider, like she shouldn’t be there; in Arthur and Eames’ world.

Eames clutches Arthur’s hands, folding them into his own bigger palms, enveloping them, him, puts his mouth to Arthur’s temple and says hushed words. Arthur calms slowly. “ _It’s real, you’re real, I’m real, this is real,_ ” Eames whispers and the sound carries to Ariadne.

She fingers her totem, feels the chipped pawn, a deliberate blemish. _It’s real,_ she thinks. _I’m real_ , she thinks.  She doesn’t think, carefully, _do I want this to be real?_  

Then, like the final strains of an orchestra, like the stillness before a dream crashes, melts around them, Eames brings Arthur’s hands to his lips, kisses the golden band on his finger, once, twice, thrice and Arthur laughs, brightly, more happily than Ariadne has ever heard him laugh. _This is real,_ Ariadne thinks.

That is her moment of clarity.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I really need to stop reading a/e marriage fics. Unbetaed, sorry for the overuse of commas.


End file.
